When designing wire harnesses arranged in a certain vehicle, it is necessary to create a design drawing which shows connections of electric wires constituting the wire harnesses. Hereinafter, a procedure of designing wire harnesses will be described.
When designing wire harnesses arranged in a certain vehicle, two specifications of auxiliary device-based wiring information and an auxiliary device specification table of the vehicle are necessary. First, auxiliary device-based wiring information and an actual wiring diagram created on the basis of the auxiliary device-based wiring information will be described. In recent years, the auxiliary device-based wiring information and the actual wiring diagram may be designed by CAD (Computer Aided Design) (for example, see Patent Literature 1).
The auxiliary device-based wiring information is prepared for each of the systems, such as a head lamp system, an airbag system, an air-conditioning system, an engine control system, and an antilock brake system, which are mounted in a vehicle and separately driven. In order to drive the system, it is necessary to connect electrical components (for example, a battery, an ECU (Electronic Control Unit), and a driving machine) constituting the system by a signal line, a power line, and a ground line. The auxiliary device-based wiring information includes circuit line connection information representing terminals of an electrical component to which the starting point and the terminating point of each of the electric wires of the signal line, the power line, and the ground line are connected, and electric wires to which the signal line, the power line, and the ground line are connected, and auxiliary device information on an auxiliary device which connects the electric wires of the signal line, the power line, and the ground line to the electrical component. Since the auxiliary device-based wiring information mainly aims to represent a circuit diagram of a system having a plurality of electrical components, information on electric wires is not included therein.
Accordingly, an actual wiring diagram in which information on the electric wires is added to the auxiliary device-based wiring information is created. In the actual wiring diagram, the information on the electric wires is added to the circuit lines which connect electrical components together and are described in the auxiliary device-based wiring information, and a vehicle space is functionally divided into respective areas (an engine compartment, a vehicle interior wall, or a trunk; hereinafter these areas will be referred to as partitioned areas) where wire harnesses are arrangeable. For example, when a circuit line described in the auxiliary device-based wiring information extends over a plurality of partitioned areas and is connected to a plurality of electrical components, information on terminals or connectors connected to the terminals of the electrical component at the starting point and the terminating point of the circuit line is described in the actual wiring diagram. Information on respective electric wires positioned in the partitioned areas (since wire harnesses are arranged in the respective partitioned areas, it is necessary to connect the terminals of a plurality of electrical components by connecting the electric wires of the respective partitioned areas) is also described in the actual wiring diagram. Information on auxiliary devices, such as a connector, a JB {(Electric) Junction Box}, and a JC (Joint Connector) for connecting the end portions of electric wires positioned in the respective partitioned areas (when the end portions of electric wires are connected through welding or butt-joining, information of this effect) is described in the actual wiring diagram. The actual wiring diagram in which the information on electric wires is described in this way is created for each system mounted in the vehicle.
Subsequently, an auxiliary device specification table will be described.
In the auxiliary device specification table, the configuration (a part number of the wire harness, a combination of specifications which are applicable to the wire harness, identification information of applicable vehicles in which the wire harness is arrangeable, and arrangeable partitioned areas of the applied vehicle) of a general-purpose wire harness is described in a matrix for each wire harness.
Subsequently, region-based connector/wiring information is created on the basis of the actual wiring diagram and the auxiliary device specification table created in this way. The region-based connector/wiring information describes a wire harness arrangeable in each partitioned area of a target vehicle while including the electric wires described in the actual wiring diagram (that is, while enabling all systems mounted in the vehicle to be driven). When creating the region-based connector/wiring information, a wire harness arrangeable in the partitioned area is schematically specified from the auxiliary device specification table through a subsequent step. First, a required specification code necessary for driving all the systems in the partitioned area is specified with reference to the actual wiring diagram of all systems mounted in the vehicle. A wire harness including a combination of all specifications is specified with reference to the specified specification code. This step is executed for all partitioned areas, whereby a wire harness arrangeable in each partitioned area of the target vehicle is specified.
After performing the region-based connector/wiring information creation step of creating the region-based connector/wiring information, a success/failure determination step of determining whether or not the description of the auxiliary device-based wiring information is identical to the description of the region-based connector/wiring information is performed. That is, it is determined whether or not the starting point and the terminating point of a circuit line connecting electrical components in the auxiliary device-based wiring information are identical to the starting point and the terminating point of connections of electric wires connecting electrical components in the region-based connector/wiring information.